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Mastering The Fine Art Of The Sales Pitch

The golden age of the carnival barker and the Wild West medicine peddler are long gone. But they still provide some great lessons for your sales team, especially in key areas like buyer proximity and “reading” customer intent.

Two college academics say that while market sales pitching might be a “dying art,”C-Level executives can still learn plenty of lessons from “carnival-style barkers” that can pump up the volume, and the revenues, from corporate sales departments.

Trevor Pinch, sociology professor at Cornell University, and Colin Clark, business professor the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, analyzed the sales techniques of British market pitchmen from 1984 to 1994, and laid out their results on a new website, Life’s a Pitch and Then You Buy.

What they found surprised them, and led them to rethink what’s being taught in modern marketing programs.

Lessons from the Streets

“When we commenced our research project, we quickly realized we had stumbled upon a bunch of spellbinding orators and patter-merchants who employed a highly sophisticated form of grass-roots marketing rarely found in academic textbooks,” explained Pinch. “We knew there was something very special in their knowledge, awareness and understanding of human behavior.”

To make their findings, the professors videotaped not only the sales pitchmen at work but also the targeted buyer. They wanted a “moment-to-moment” tracking formula that examined the pitchmen’s words, gestures and non-verbal sales techniques. In addition, the academics wanted to study the reaction, and decision-making process (of whether to buy or not to buy) from consumers.

“Their very close proximity to their potential customers often meant that, in order to sell successfully, they had to develop an extraordinary sensitivity to the smallest changes in the behavior of the shoppers that gathered at their stalls,” offered Clark.

They discovered insider lingo used by pitchmen (example: “pulling the edge” means convincing passers-by to stop and pay attention, and “ramping” helps make an inexpensive product appear to have more value) that boosted their success rates.

One particularly effective technique used by barkers was the “bat,” by which sellers slowly lowered the price of a product to the point where customers thought they were getting a bargain – even though the lowest price offered an ample profit margin for the pitchmen.

Find Your Inner Pitchman

What other key takeaways can CEOs and sales executives garner from the old-school carnival barkers? Here are a few tips:

Ask questions – Sales barkers always engage a potential customer by asking questions. That tells the pitchmen what the customer wants, and helps build a rapport, making the customer more comfortable and more likely to buy.

Don’t waste your time on features – The best pitchmen are able to close a sale not by discussing product or service features, but by discovering what customers want, and then explaining how those features can solve a customer’s problem. That means emphasizing benefits over features.

Keep it light – The most successful pitchmen always have a good line or two handy to relax a customer. Nothing off-color – that could turn a customer off – but something humorous that can help mitigate any “sticker shock” a potential client may be experiencing.

Be indifferent – The great carnival barkers always act like they don’t need the cash. Instead, they convey an aura of helpfulness and benevolence – where they’re helping the customer solve a problem.

That takes confidence, Pinch and Clark say – and it’s a confident sales person who lets the customer decide whether he or she wants to buy or not – or better yet, makes them think they control the deal.

There’s a lot to learn from old-style carny barkers. C-level executives would do well to instill some pitchmen skills in their sales force.

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